Move to AHL in place?

Font Size:

By Craig DeVrieze | Wednesday, May 23, 2007 11:52 PM CDT | () comments

The Quad-City Mallards have called a media conference for 10:30 a.m. today at The Mark of the Quad-Cities, where they are expected to announce a move to the American Hockey League next year.

For more than a week, Mallards representatives have refused comment on a May 15 report out of Omaha, Neb., that the National Hockey League’s Calgary Flames would move their Triple-A AHL operation here after two costly seasons in Omaha.

Signs, though, have pointed toward a negotiation between the Flames and Quad-City Sports Ventures, the Mallards’ year-old ownership team.

Those signs included a sighting last week of Calgary general manager Darryl Sutter at a Moline hotel, and the Friday purchase of a qcflames.com Web domain by a group called Q-C Hockey. Mallards team president Tim Taylor was identified as the domain’s administrative contact.

KWQC-TV reported Tuesday that the final piece to a possible deal might be a Wednesday meeting of the executive board of The Mark of the Quad-Cities, which would have to sign off on an agreement.

The building’s ice surface would have to be expanded 15 feet to meet AHL requirements. Other arena modifications naturally would follow, and during a failed 2005 negotiation to bring the San Jose Sharks’ AHL operation to the Quad-Cities, plans also were drawn for remodeled locker rooms.

A move to the AHL, whose direct affiliations with NHL teams means a quantum leap in talent level, would end a 12-year Mallards run in the low Double-A United Hockey League.

For several of those 12 years, the Mallards were a model minor league franchise, welcoming crowds in excess of 7,500 from 1996 to 1997, their second season, through 2000-01.

On the ice, the team won three Colonial Cup championships and won 50 or more regular-season games in seven of eight seasons.

Overseeing that unprecedented run of success from 1996 until 2005 was Howard Cornfield, who was team president and general manager through much of that reign and a part owner from 2001 until a year ago.

Wednesday, Cornfield wished the new Q-C owners well, saying the jump to Triple-A “is a good chance to resuscitate hockey in the Quad-Cities. I wish it had come two years ago, when our season-ticket base was 1,770. But better late than never.’’

Cornfield was behind the push to bring the Sharks here in 2005. Cornfield said his partners in the Mallards former ownership team, Victory Sports Group, turned down offers of $2 million from the Sharks and The Mark and $1.4 million from the Sharks alone to purchase the remaining years of the Mallards lease at The Mark.

San Jose would have relocated a failing operation in Cleveland here and been the team’s sole owner. The Sharks since have moved their AHL team to Worcester, Mass.

Last year, VSG rejected an offer by the Edmonton Oilers to own and operate an AHL team stocked by the Oilers. Looking at an operating budget that would represent an increase of more than $1.2 million over VSG’s UHL operation, then VSG CEO Mike Tatoain and his partners declined and, in April of 2005, they sold the Mallards to Quad-City Sports Ventures for a still undisclosed price.

Depending on terms of an agreement, a deal with Calgary could represent a compromise between the two earlier AHL opportunities.

Calgary owned 50 percent of its partnership with the Omaha Ak-Sar-Ben Knights but held majority control.

Whatever the terms of the deal, there is clear risk for the Q-C Sports Ventures team.

The Omaha World-Herald reported Calgary’s share of operating losses over two seasons in Omaha at in excess of $4 million.

Omaha finished 25th among the AHL’s 27 teams in attendance last season, with an average of 3,474 fans.

The Mallards finished sixth in the 10-team UHL with an average of 3,120.

Players supplied by the Flames could be expected to make a competitive team. The Knights were in the Western Division with 49-25-5 record this year before losing a West Division semifinal series to the Iowa Stars in six games after losing a key player early in the playoff.

Craig DeVrieze can be contacted at (563) 333-2610 or cdevrieze@qctimes.com. Comment on this story at qctimes.com